A wide variety of electrical connectors have been designed for terminating flat cables or circuits, such as flat flexible cables, flexible printed circuits or the like. A typical connector for flat circuits includes a dielectric housing molded of plastic material, for instance. The housing has an elongated opening or slot for receiving an end of the flat circuit which has generally parallel, laterally spaced conductors exposed across the end. A plurality of terminals are mounted in the housing and are spaced laterally along the slot, with contact portions of the terminals engageable with the laterally spaced conductors of the flat circuit. An actuator often is movably mounted on the housing for movement between a first position whereat the flat circuit is freely insertable into the slot and a second position whereat the actuator clamps the circuit in the housing and biases the circuit against the contact portions of the terminals. Typical connectors of this type can be seen in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Nos. 9-97655; 10-214661; 11-31561; 11-54218; 12-48886; 12-106238; 13-76794; 13-110483; and others.
As stated above, conductors are spaced laterally along the insertion end of the flat circuit. The conductors may be exposed at a top surface of the circuit, or the conductors may be exposed at a bottom surface of the circuit. For instance, if a circuit has a finite length, conductors may be exposed at the top surface at one end of the circuit, and at the bottom surface at the opposite end of the circuit. The connector typically is fixed to a support structure or mounted on top of a printed circuit board., and the connector, therefore, cannot be turned upside-down to accommodate different circuits with the exposed conductors on the top or bottom surfaces of the circuits. Therefore, in such cases, two types of flat circuit connectors are required, one having terminals with contact portions for engaging the top surface of a flat circuit and another having terminals with contact portions for engaging the bottom surface of a circuit. This, of course, leads to problems in inventory management and increased manufacturing costs. Another example of this problem is where a flat circuit has conductors at opposite ends thereof and on the same side (top or bottom) thereof, and the circuit is terminated in a U-shaped configuration. Attempts have been made to solve this problem by providing connectors with enlarged cavities to accommodate different configurations of terminals, but this approach results in a larger connection space, thereby increasing the overall size of the connector in environments wherein compactness and low profiles are not only desirable but, in some cases, necessary.
The present invention is directed to solving these problems by providing an electrical connector for a flat circuit, wherein the connector can terminate a flat circuit having conductors on the top surface thereof, the bottom surface thereof or both surfaces.